


like a secret wind pouring

by cashewdani



Category: Parks and Recreation, Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-05
Updated: 2011-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My ex, Bradley’s in town. For our reunion. And he’s a lobbyist in D.C., and I’ve been looking at pictures from high school, and it’s crazy, I’m being crazy, I don’t even know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a secret wind pouring

**Author's Note:**

> Un'beta'ed. All mistakes are mine. And this exists because I chose to watch _Wet Hot American Summer_ twice in one weekend while I was sick and talk to torigates about how Bradley Cooper can do anything.

“Ooooo, Leslie, girl, there is no other way for me to say this. You have a _fine_ gentleman waiting for you in your office.”

“Donna, are you doing that thing, where you’re talking about Ben, but we’re trying to make it like I don’t know you’re talking about Ben?” Leslie smiles. “I had no idea we’d even discussed starting this.”

April spits out, “No, this guy is definitely not Ben, Leslie. He makes Ben look like my incontinent grandfather.”

“That doesn’t make sense. He’s not wearing a diaper, right? No, Ben wouldn’t do that...”

“Just, go, Leslie, please. He’s in there with Tom!” April sighs like she has no idea how she even got so involved in this.

And she’s fully expecting to see Ben there, but when she opens the door to her office, the person sitting at her desk is not Ben. “LK!” He’s up out of his seat and hugging her before she can process what just happened.

“Bradley?” she asks, because he looks a little bit like Bradley Cooper, but Bradley Cooper left Indiana after their senior year, and more importantly, did not fill out a suit like that.

“I go by Brad now that I don’t have a curfew any more.” When he smiles, he’s the same kid whose tie she had to tie before competition.

“Leslie, this guy is awesome! He ate at a restaurant AT THE SAME TIME as Obama.”

Leslie ignores Tom completely. “What are you doing here?”

He flops back down into the chair. “In your office?” 

“Well, yes, in my office, but more what are you even doing in Pawnee? Aren’t you living in D.C. now?”

“They don’t have gates up around the city. I’m allowed to leave every once and awhile.”

“Yeah, but...the President isn’t coming is he? Oh God, am I getting an award? No, don’t tell me. But is any of that happening?”

He laughs. “You’re almost exactly the same, LK. No, I’m here for the reunion. You’re going, right? I sent you an invite.” He did, weeks ago, his job as the senior class secretary.

“I was debating it. We’ve been so busy with the Harvest Festival, I didn’t honestly know if there would be time.”

“Yeah, my mom told me you were bringing that back. That’s awesome. Do you remember the one junior year?”

She can remember the crisp in the air, and that she wore her new jean jacket she’d bought just for that night, and the smell of apple pie filling the entire fair grounds. “When I won you a stuffed monkey.”

He nods and matter-of-factly says, “And I bought you five sticks cotton candy.”

She went home and wrote in her diary about those. “That was the one.”

“That was the one,” She can feel Tom watching them and is sure his mouth is completely hanging open. She’s going to have at least an hour of questions to answer after this. “Well, I want you to come, LK. So let me know, so I can save you a place at my table.” He hands her one of his cards while moving towards the door. “I’ve got to run, but seriously, call me. I want to see you more before I go back.”

“Well, I’ve got your card,” she can’t help laughing. There it is, Brad Cooper, with the National Consumers League, and every possible way to reach him.

“Much better than me writing it on a piece of loose leaf and slipping it in your locker.”

“Hey, you used that piece of loose leaf,” she reminds him, and he waves to her from the hall.

Tom turns to her. “LK, you’ve got a lot to tell me.”

“Oh, shut up, Tom,” she says while texting Ann.

\---

  
“I’m happy you were able to come over today,” Leslie tells Ann, while handing her the package of Oreos.

“Yeah, no problem, it sounded urgent. What’s going on?” Ann takes one, and Leslie’s twisting open three more to add to the pile of cookies she already has in front of her.

“My ex, Bradley’s in town. For our reunion. And he’s a lobbyist in D.C., and I’ve been looking at pictures from high school, and it’s crazy, I’m being crazy, I don’t even know.”

“Well, what’s the problem?”

“There’s not really a problem...I just feel weird.” She licks the cream from one side of a cookie while flicking through a stack of photographs with her free hand. “We were so close and I haven’t seen him, even really spoken to him in years.”

“Let me see,” Ann requests and Leslie slides what she thinks is her favorite one, the two of them together outside of Borough Hall the first time they were both eligible to vote. “Oh, he’s very good looking.”

“He only looks better now, but, really, we were mostly friends, more than anything.” She looks at their interlocked fists raised in the air, the “I Voted!” stickers on their chests. “We weren’t even dating anymore in that picture.”

“Are you freaking out about how much you care again all of a sudden?”

“Maybe? But, no, no, I don’t think so.” Still, she is running her finger along his jaw in his senior portrait as she’s saying this. She knows that looks bad.

Ann asks, “Do you like him?” and Leslie knows she doesn’t mean as friends.

“Yes, of course I still like him, but that doesn’t really matter.”

“Why? Because he lives in D.C.?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Is he married?” The way Ann is biting down on her lip, Leslie can tell she’s trying to decide how important that really is in the scheme of things when Ann doesn’t know Bradley’s wife and the other woman is her best friend.

Not that any of that is the issue. “Ann, he’s gay.”

“Oh my God!” The look on Ann’s face makes Leslie feel like they’re at a sleepover in the 4th grade. “Did he just tell you that?”

“No, he told me years ago, after we broke up.”

“Did you suspect he might be?”

Leslie nods, because, what else are you going to think about when every other girl with a boyfriend, and even some of them without, came to school the Monday after Beth Lawson’s party with hickies on their necks and she realized she and Bradley had spent the whole night laying out on the trampoline talking? “We only kissed once, on a school trip to Indianapolis. We were lying on his hotel bed going over environmental statistics of Denmark, and he said he wanted to try it, to see what it was like. And we did, and then we went right back to listing natural resources. So, I suppose that I knew.”

“Oh, Leslie...”

It wasn’t that sad though. “No, it was great, we got a plaque. I still have it somewhere.”

Ann puts her hand on top of Leslie’s, not seeming to mind that she has mushed up cookie bits on her fingernails. “You didn’t want the plaque.”

“I did, I just wanted some other things too.” She sighs. “Thanks, Ann.”

“You want to show me a lot more pictures and I’ll tell you you’re just as skinny now and that if anyone could turn Brad straight it would be you?”

“That was _exactly_ what I was thinking we could do.”

\---

  
After talking with Ann, and the gigantic mistake of watching _My Best Friend’s Wedding_ which is apparently simultaneously about how your best high school friend is going to marry someone else, and how you’re going to wind up dating your best adult gay friend, Leslie decides she’ll be strong enough to go out to lunch with Bradley.

She suggests _JJ’s_ , she hasn’t had a waffle in like two days, but he wants to go to _Flannery’s_ because he can’t believe the place is still open. She knows, because while they’re waiting for a table, he turns to her and says for the second time, “I can’t believe this place is still open!”

“Especially because you’re the only person I know who likes coming here.”

“Their burgers are amazing. I dream about their burgers. And their fries!” He keeps talking, but Leslie gets distracted, because apparently Brad isn’t the only person who can tolerate eating here. Ben Wyatt is sitting in one of the corner booths, staring at her like he doesn’t even know who she is.

She’s standing there trying to decide why she feels so guilty. Brad’s gay and she only recently stopped hating Ben, but she wants to just disappear into the floor. They cannot talk to each other. She doesn’t know why, but they just can’t. She’s even considering faking that she’s sick, but she feels like Brad might still stay and have a burger and she’d just wind up with another Tupperware of soup from Ben that she’ll feel weird about returning because she stained the plastic by putting it in the microwave.

And Ben’s not only seen them, he’s seen that she’s seen him. There’s maybe at most a minute where she can live in a world where her past hasn’t slammed into her present. She doesn’t even get that though, because Ben’s getting up to pay his bill despite how there’s still most of his French Dip left on his plate.

“Leslie, I didn’t know you ate here.”

“She doesn’t, I wanted to. She doesn’t think anyone eats here. I’m Brad, by the way,”

“Ben,” he says, holding out his hand. “And she’s right, I’m only here because it’s the one place in town that will serve me.” Brad laughs like it’s a joke, but Leslie knows that might be accurate. “How do you two know each other?”

It would be cute if she wanted Ben asking about the attractive guy she was out to lunch with, but she doesn’t, so it just seems forward and makes her uncomfortable. “LK and I go way back, to high school.”

“Oh really? I haven’t seen you around before.” 

She has no idea why Ben was mocking her scheming abilities when his seem to be that of a middle schooler. “He’s from DC, and he’s in town for our reunion and that’s all that you’re going to get to know. Oh, look, I think there’s a table open!” She says that last part pretty loudly, while trying to move an old lady’s handbag onto the floor because the only table someone isn’t sitting at is the one Ben got up from. Seriously, when did this become the most hopping joint in town? _Flannery’s_ sucks!

The woman grabs her bag back, while Ben says, “Is there something she doesn’t want me to know?” with this stupid smirk. Maybe forgiving him was a mistake.

“She was my first girlfriend,” Brad says, and she hates him, hates him so much, definitely way more than when he pushed her in the lake July 4th weekend.

And Brad saying that, it’s like it confirms everything Ben was nervous about, because he just responds, “Well, Chris is probably waiting for me, I should get going. Enjoy your lunch,” shuffling past them and leaving some bills on the counter.

“He’s nice,” Brad says as Leslie’s watching him walk out the door. “How do you know him?”

“He’s one of the state auditors.”

“Cute too.”

“Don’t even start with me, Bradley.” She turns towards the empty hostess station and yells, “We just want to eat some of your inferior food, will someone please find us a table!”

\---

  
Watching Bradley when he takes his first bite of his burger maybe makes being here worth it. “Oh God, that is so good.” He leans back into the upholstered booth, sighing. “I missed this.”

“They have burgers in D.C. I know. Probably way better ones than this.”

“Not the burger. Well, kind of the burger, but you, more importantly. Talking to you, that’s what I miss.”

If Leslie was actually eating her salad, she’s pretty sure she would have choked a little bit then. “Do you remember why that stopped?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember.” He clears his throat, and she knows this was probably not what he hoped to talk about when he said he wanted to see her more. “That was not my finest Thanksgiving. But you never told me why you got so mad. You just told me to leave.”

“You kissed my cousin Michael, you know that part. But what you don’t know is that ever since you first called my house, my mother had been plotting our wedding. And she talked to me. About you. It was like the one thing that got her to sit down and have a conversation with me that lasted longer than a few sentences,” 

She can so clearly see her mother waiting for her after their first date with two cups of tea, asking her if it went as well as they’d both been hoping. 

“And of course she felt that way, because you were smart, and handsome and driven, and I think the fact that you liked me made her think I wasn’t just this weird kid who would prefer canvasing to laying out at the pool. And even though we were broken up, I think she figured it would work out eventually, because you were still there. Still spending time with me.”

He sighs. “And she didn’t know I was gay because I’d forbidden you from telling her.”

“You weren’t out to your own parents yet, and I get it, it wasn’t that, Bradley. I think it was just that once you kissed Michael while slicing the pumpkin pie, I had to finally face what you being gay really meant for me.”

“Which included losing that connection with your mom,” He rubs at his forehead. “LK, I’m sorry. I seriously can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“It’s okay. That night she came into my room and let me cry on her shoulder for a really long time and she told me you didn’t deserve me.” She smiles. “It was nice to hear.” 

And it is okay. She has no idea why she stopped speaking to him for so long, except that it made sense when she was 19 and then it became too weird to revert back to doing once she realized it was probably way worse for him to be caught kissing Michael than it was for her to be catching them. “I shouldn’t have cut you out of my life. That I’m sorry for.”

“So, we’re both sorry. I think we should absolve ourselves of any guilt.” He holds up his hand like he’s going to take an oath. “Let’s make a pledge.”

“You’re still doing the pledge thing?” Leslie cannot help laughing.

“No! Seriously, I’m a grown man, but it’s you, so let’s pledge.”

She mimics him, raising her right hand. “I, Leslie Knope, do solemnly swear to not feel bad about getting mad at you when we were teenagers anymore.”

He places his palm against hers. “And, I, Bradley Cooper, do solemnly swear to not feel bad that I couldn’t be straight for Leslie.”

“Will you tell me that if you could have been straight for anyone it would have been me?”

“It would have been you, LK,” He folds his fingers so their hands are interlocked. “Without a doubt, it would have been you.”

She feels warm, embarrassed even, as their elbows rest on the table, his palm dry and solid against hers. She tries to imagine what it would be like if Ben saw this instead of just them walking in together, and she realizes she really wouldn’t like it.

\---

  
She gives Bradley an official tour of murals the following day, and they spend the evening in his hotel, ordering everything on the room service menu. She swears she only went because he promised her he’s not going to try to kiss him again, or make her create a tri-fold poster, but that’s not really why.

After over a decade of not having him, it feels weird to be sad about him leaving again soon, but she is. She wonders if this had happened sooner, years earlier, what it would have meant for her. Would she have spent weekends visiting him at school? In D.C.? Would he have convinced her to join him when he went out there, setting up shop in this crappy apartment, and going to rallies and debates? Could she be a totally different person if she hadn’t forgotten to take the whipped cream out of the fridge on November 25th her first Thanksgiving home from college?

And most of it seems nice, the reality the alternate Leslie lives in, where she’s more LK than herself, but she knows that if it hadn’t have been that kiss with Michael, it would have been something else. A message on the answering machine, or a boyfriend, or the way he watched someone else across the room. There would have had to have been something. And even if somehow there wasn’t, that that universe kept LK’s heart safe and naive, it would have been terrible all the same, because she never would have come to terms with that this with him, it wasn’t enough for her.

He made her aware that she never needed to compromise what she really wanted. He made her who she is, and she’s going to miss him a lot when he flies out at the end of the week.

\---

  
They’re eating lunch in the courtyard, a pizza he picked up with extra garlic knots, even though it’s getting a little too cold to be outside any more for long.

“This pizza is gross, LK.”

“Nino’s has the best pizza in Pawnee!”

“This is the worst pizza I’ve had this year.”

“You’re such a snob now that you live in a city, you know that? D.C. isn’t even known for its pizza.”

“Well, Pawnee isn’t either.”

She laughs and notices Ben approaching them, a paper bag in his hand from _Paneras_. It’s like he knows when they’re sharing a meal in public. And she can tell he’s trying to avoid them, even though he’s the one who keeps being present when she and Bradley are, but she calls him over. “Ben! What’d you get? It’s Thursday, they have chicken and wild rice!”

“Hey, guys. And I just got a tuna sandwich.”

“But you can make a tuna sandwich.” Leslie hates getting things in restaurants that she can handle making herself.

“You can make chicken and wild rice soup too.”

“Well, _you_ probably could.” Bradley shoots her a look, and she’s never seen it before, but she’s pretty confident it’s saying let me be your gay wingman. She did not ask for this.

“Yeah, I guess. Actually, it’s good I ran into you. They just took a crumb cake out of the oven, so I grabbed you a piece. If I had known you were going to be here...” he addresses Bradley.

“Nah, how could you know?”

“You guys are actually together a lot recently,” he starts to say, but Leslie cuts him off with, “That was so thoughtful, Ben. Thank you. I love their crumb cake.” She does, she really does, and yet she still feels weird taking it from him, because how does Ben know that?

“Yeah, I know.” Seriously, how does he?

“Hey, Ben, crazy question, what are you doing on Friday night?” Bradley asks.

“Friday?” He shuffles his feet a little. “Probably watching the playoffs.”

“Well, why don’t you DVR that and come to the reunion? There’s an extra seat at the table, and a well stocked bar. Plus, I’d love to hear about your job. The way Leslie talks about it sounds like it’s probably pretty difficult, but I’m sure ultimately rewarding. Getting things sorted out like that.”

“Oh, I don’t think the playoffs are something you can DVR, Bradley, I mean, they’re pretty special.” She has no idea what he’s doing, she definitely didn’t ask for this, and Ben is just staring at them like someone spliced his DNA with a cod’s, his mouth looks so much like a fish’s.

Ben says, “Yeah, and isn’t this something just for graduates?”

“And their guests. It’ll be fun, you should consider it.” Bradley glances down at his watch. “I hate to run, but I actually have to finalize some things with the catering hall. LK, let me know if Ben’s going, or if you need me to pick you up.”

“Oh, I’ll go. I guess. So you don’t need to pick her up.”

“Great. I’ll see you both then!” He leans in a kisses Leslie’s cheek, and she hears Ben clearing his throat.

“Ben, you know you don’t have to, right? He can be very...persuasive.” She settles on that word instead of demanding.

He presses his lips together, in the way she’s seen him steel himself before meetings. “No, I’ll go. I’ll go. And he did say that thing about the bar.”

“Okay, good. We’ll have fun.” She throws her napkin into the pizza box with three slices left in it.

“You cold?” he asks her, and she is a little after finishing her Coke. “Why don’t we go inside, you can eat this cake,” he shakes the bag a little, “and I’ll even let you tell me your plans for concessions at the Harvest Festival.”

“How many booths selling funnel cake do you think is excessive, Ben?”

“I can’t wait to say something I think is an overexaggeration and you to tell me it’s in no way sufficient.”

“If you were planning on saying anything less than six, that is exactly what will happen.”

He holds the door open for her. “I was thinking two, maybe three.”

“Your city doesn’t get to be the 4th fattest in America with two booths selling funnel cake,Ben, come on,” and then he laughs.

\---

  
Ann’s on a shift at the hospital, but helps Leslie pick out a blue dress through a series of texts. _You’ll look great, I promise!_ , is the last thing she sends her, and she will, she does, but she’s still nervous.

And then Ben’s at her door, and he tells her he likes the dress, it looks good on her, and he’s walking her out to his car like this is something bigger than Bradley asking him to her high school reunion for her.

It’s quiet while they’re driving until she says, “I don’t know how I’m going to this, and I have even less of an idea as to why you are.”

“Come on, don’t you want to go reconnect with your old classmates?”

“Most of us still live here in town! I just saw Melissa Watson at the gas station yesterday.”

“We could bail. Work on spreadsheets, or get some breakfast or something.” He smirks at her, and she likes that he’s teasing, but is a little bit serious underneath that.

“I told Bradley I’d go,” She does have some marketing strategies she wants to run by him though so she follows with, “But maybe after. Or during if it’s really boring.”

\---

  
Besides the fact that four different people have asked her if Ben is her husband, they didn’t even think she was married, the reunion isn’t all that bad.

After dinner, while Ben is huddled over Sarah Dambrowski’s fiance’s phone, so they can see who’s ahead in the game, Bradley comes over and asks her to dance.

“Is that okay, Ben?”

“Sure, it’s the top of the inning, go.”

“You did a nice job getting this all set up,” she tells Bradley, as he wraps his arm around her waist.

“Yeah, it did turn out pretty decently, I have to admit.”

The DJ is playing “I’ll Stand By You” and she asks him, “Do you remember dancing to this at prom?”

“I remember I felt this song was among the most moving things I’d ever listen to.” She can feel his hand making small circles on her back. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell you I heard about what you did with the penguins,” he says, still holding on to her. “That was particularly incredible.”

“Yeah? How?”

She expects him to say his mom, or that he follows the Journal online but not, “One of my ex-boyfriends put a link up to the story on his Facebook.”

At that point, she pulls back from his chest. “So, wait, one of your exes not from Pawnee came across the article and shared it with every one he’s friends with, which is a group you happen to belong to?”

“Yes.”

“I feel kind of famous right now.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Eh, you’re okay.” She settles back in as the song talks about crossroads, his body solid.

“Do you really have to leave tomorrow?”

“Someone’s got to make sure your food is safe. But I’ll come for the Harvest Festival. If you invite me.”

“Consider it in the mail.”

When the song ends, he gives her a hug, and she tells him she needs to get a drink.

She’s waiting at the bar, when Ben comes up behind her, putting his arm around her shoulder. “Can I buy you something?” He holds up one of the blue coupons, and she nods. “I bet Brad never bought you a beer.”

“No, but he did steal me some of his mom’s wine coolers at a BBQ, so that’s pretty hard to top.”

“You’re really into him, aren’t you?” There’s a touch of defeat to his voice when he says it. “Like, is this going to be one of those, we reconnected after all these years, can you believe it kind of stories?”

“Bradley’s gay, Ben. He’s completely not heterosexual.”

She catches the relief on his face even though she can see he’s trying to hide it. “But you dated him!”

“Yeah, when we were 16! I can guarantee you there is no future there.” The bartender puts two bottles down in front of them, and Leslie picks up the one that’s closer to her.

“Well, I’m sorry for that. You seem to really like him.”

“What are you going to do? I’ve had a really long time to come to terms with it.”

“Hey, do you want to dance?” He holds his hand out to her.

“But our drinks...”

“We didn’t pay for them anyway. Come on, you want to dance?”

“Sure.” She slips her hand into his, and she doesn’t know this song, but she likes it, whatever it is. Ben’s not such a great dancer, she knew that from _The Bulge_ , but he’s competent and smiling, and occasionally very sweet.

“Were you jealous? Honestly. Because it seemed like you might have been,” she has to ask him.

“Leslie, anyone who gets to make you happy is very lucky, that’s all I’m going to say.”

“That sounds kind of like a veiled way to say that yes, you were in fact jealous.”

“Take it how you will.” He spins her out, and when he pulls her back in, there’s no longer any space between them.

“I’ll miss you too, when you leave,” she tells him.

His eyes look a little sad. “Let’s not worry about that tonight,” and then he dips her down, over his arm.

She can see Bradley upside down across the room, and he holds up his glass to her. A toast. He was always big on those too.


End file.
